Part 35 (2/2)
In some places, as in Munich, it is the custom that the Prorector when the New-Year's-night ”Hoch!” is brought him, invites the students in, and treats them with punch. It may readily be imagined how much of this liquor is consumed on such an occasion, and into what a predicament a Professor once fell in Munich, who had prepared his punch, but waited for the students in vain, who out of dislike omitted to pay him this visit of honour.
But it was destined that the Englishman and his three friends, to whom we must now return from this digression, should not on this night yet retire to rest. They had just arrived in the Karl-platz, as a man galloped past, crying out with all his might,--”The ice goes! The ice goes!”
This messenger was from Neckargemund, sent to announce to the inhabitants of Heidelberg this event, which the people living on the banks of the river, and especially the boat-people, always look forward to with great anxiety, and take their measures of precaution accordingly. But especially in that winter were people full of apprehension, as the ice-covering had acquired an extraordinary thickness; and indeed, in some places, could no longer be called a covering, since the flood in shallow places was completely frozen to the bottom. After a fierce and early-occurring season of severity, the actual warmth of spring suddenly broke out, and the soft south wind melted the snow so rapidly on the hills that the waters ran in streams down their sides. But all was in readiness; and as soon as the four students reached the bridge, they saw, wherever the houses on the banks of the Neckar did not completely occupy its strand to the edge, groups of men, who had provided themselves with cressets with rolls of pitched torches, called pitch garlands, and awaited the spectacle with eager looks. The bridge itself was covered with men, and scarcely a place at the bal.u.s.trade was to be fought out. From this place an interesting scene presented itself. So far as you could see the banks of the Neckar, the torches flamed, and threw their flickering lights on the surface of ice, on the crowding spectators, and on the neighbouring landscape.
In the city itself, most of the houses were lit up for the festival, while above them, in the country, the mountains and the old castle shrouded themselves in the deepest gloom. Most of those who had a.s.sembled on the bridge, were men in their ordinary dress, who had, on the announcement of the ice-break, hastened hither from the punch-bowl.
But others had been roused from their beds, and exhibited themselves in costumes singular enough, over which they had hastily thrown their cloaks; out of which their nightcaps peeped above.
The explosion, as of distant thunder, was now heard, and the floods of water that rushed up through the disrupted ice were seen pouring over the surface. The ice in the neighbourhood of the bridge cracked and groaned aloud; deep fissures opened, and ran with lightning speed far and wide. But as the ma.s.s of waters still rushed nearer and nearer, and the ice continued to resist its pressure, the floods rose, and forcing into the streets, made the people a.s.sembled on the banks flee back precipitately. On the other side of the bridge, all hands in the mean time were busy removing the piles of fire-timber which were ranged there, and in conveying them to a safe distance. The huge fragments of the already up-torn ice were sent with fury over the ice-surface that yet resisted; in some places, piling itself up into actual bulwarks, and in others was heaved into the streets. Thus it happened, that a little boy who, forgotten of the rest in their flight, had escaped to the top of a pile of wood, above the bridge, was, by one of the ma.s.ses of ice which was forced forward by the water and driven directly under the pile, carried aloft, together with the pile. Ere any one could spring to his a.s.sistance, the moment was come when the opposing ice could no longer maintain its resistance to the acc.u.mulating flood. It burst with loud explosions, and raising itself furiously with the other fragments rushed forward towards the bridge. Through the long contest, the water had acquired the most terrible agitation, and when the victory came at once, it formed itself into a headlong stream, which carried the ma.s.s of ice on which the boy was, rapidly towards the middle of the flood. The boy, surrounded by the raging element, shrieked in the most fearful manner for help. His cries of misery were scarcely to be heard, but they were not necessary to fill every spectator with terror and commiseration. But who shall help him! Many an able swimmer was there, but none would undertake so desperate an enterprise. Some cried out to throw a rope from the bridge, that the boy might lay hold of, but this was impracticable, for in the moment in which the ice-ma.s.ses struck the piers of the bridge, they were scattered into fragments, and the stone bridge itself trembled with the shock of their das.h.i.+ng against it. Already the ice-ma.s.s, on which the boy sate in despair, approached the piers. Every spectator watched the horrible catastrophe with breathless expectation; when the ma.s.ses of ice which now pa.s.sed in countless numbers, blocked up first one and then another arch of the bridge. There was a momentary pause in the progress of the ice. At the crisis of this terrific spectacle, a band of lively music approached the bridge. It was the wild troop of students, who, having completed their round, and finished all their Vivats! and Lebe Hochs! were marching past with their torches, and amongst them was seen the Red Fisherman, who holding in one hand a torch, and in the other a pipe, was striding on with open breast, and in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves.
”Ackermann! Ackermann!” shouted the mult.i.tude, ”he must help! He alone can do it!”
The approaching train rushed upon the bridge; the torch-bearers flew to the bal.u.s.trades to cast a light upon the scene--the music ceased in an instant The Red Fisherman, on whom all eyes were turned, cast but one glance towards the child; threw his torch on the ice below, and ran down from the bridge to the banks of the Neckar. It was high time, for the ice-ma.s.ses again began to put themselves in motion. Boldly the fisherman sprung from one block of ice to another; already was he near the boy, when the ice broke beneath him; yet he fought desperately against the rus.h.i.+ng water. He reached the boy, and endeavoured to raise himself upon the ice-ma.s.s;--at the same moment it went to pieces, and both the fisherman and the boy disappeared for some seconds. The people gave them up as lost for ever, when a voice was heard from the other side of the bridge, crying ”A rope! a rope!” It was the fisherman himself, who stood on the bas.e.m.e.nt at the foot of the pier with the boy in his arms! He stood up to the middle in water, but he held fast by a projection of the pier. A rope with a large piece of wood tied to it was speedily let down by some of the fishermen, and Ackermann with the boy was hauled up with the help of the students. As soon as his head appeared on a level with the parapet, he handed over the boy to the people, and then himself leaped over the iron bal.u.s.trade. With a loud ”Vivat!” he was here received; and the musicians blew the finest flourish that they had executed on this remarkable New-Year's night.
The troop of students accompanied the Red Fisherman with loud acclamations, who quickly put himself in dry clothes; not regarding some slight wounds which he had received from the ice-ma.s.ses. The students took him into their midst, and ”Free-night! free-night!”
resounded on all sides.
This cry of triumph means that they will revel the whole night through; and this takes place either at the room of some student, or at a kneip.
In the last case, the permission of the police is necessary. These free-nights are only held on extraordinary occasions, or, as in many cases, when without any particular cause the sons of the Muses find themselves in a thoroughly joyous humour.
These were especially frequent formerly amongst the so-called Lumpia.
This means a union of students, who bind themselves for a certain time to give themselves up to the Lump; that is to doing nothing, and to the wildest pleasures,--to drinking, playing at hazard, and so on. To the honour of the students these wild engagements are rare, and are in the strictest manner prohibited by the laws.
The Red Fisherman warmed his stiffened limbs at the kneip with punch, and a collection was made on the spot, whose proceeds were handed to him as his reward. The four friends in the mean time had taken the child, and brought it into a neighbouring inn, where it was undressed and put to bed, until the mother, who did not till some time afterwards learn the whole of the circ.u.mstances, could be fetched.
After the many events of the night, the wearied party hastened home, to dream over again what they had witnessed, variously metamorphosed by fancy, and one image mixed up and exchanged with another.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE MARCHING FORTH.
We Burschen freshly forth to the number of seventeen hundred; thou at our head, and butchers and tailors and shopkeepers behind us, and innkeeper and barber, and all the trade guilds of the city, swearing to storm the place, if a hair of the Burschens' heads is but crumpled.--_Schiller's Robber_.
Before we permit the Student to depart from the happy Burschendom into Philisterium, we will see in what manner he generally takes his farewell of the university.
For this, there are three ways: either the quiet way, in which we shall presently see Mr. Traveller depart; or the still quieter one in the stillness of the night, in order to avoid the hands of his creditors; or, finally, the compulsory one, which the Bursche must generally take who has made too much noise in the world.
We have already made ourselves acquainted with different excesses on which lie the penalties of banishment, and we will here speak of the greatest of all these excesses, at least of that, in respect to its application to members, the very greatest--the Marching Forth. As the duel is resorted to, to enforce justice from one student towards another; so it is the Marching Forth, in which the students not merely leave the bounds of order, but the university-city itself, which is regarded as the means of avenging the injured body upon the whole city, for an encroachment upon its rights. That the reader may obtain a clear notion of the Marching Forth, we will describe the one which took place amongst the students of Heidelberg, in the year 1828.
The Museum in Heidelberg, a building dedicated to social entertainment and pleasures, was built in 1827, and completed in the following year.
The rules for the management of the inst.i.tution, which, after careful consideration and proof, were adopted, did not in some particulars please a part of the students; others, however, found nothing to object to, and about seventy students immediately enrolled themselves as members. Instead now of leaving every one to his liberty, a part of the discontented came to the conclusion, that the museum must, so far as the university was concerned, be put altogether under the bann. As it was now found that they laboured zealously to this end, the teachers took the proper measures to prevent such a circ.u.mstance. A member of the senate, in whom the better portion of the students had always the strongest moral reliance, endeavoured by every means to make such of the students as stood high in the respect of their fellows, clearly to comprehend, that such a bann had the severest enactment of academical law against it; that it might render the Baden students unfortunate for life, if they allowed themselves to become partisans; that it might lead to the most angry contentions, if those who had already become members of the Museum, would not suffer themselves to be compelled to such an act of evacuation; and the Senate could not remain unconcerned spectators, by any means, of such disorder, not just then especially, as on the near approaching name-day of the Grand Duke, the Museum was to be solemnly and ceremoniously opened.
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